Loveless
by PhoenixAeternum
Summary: Post-OotP. H/G. Love blossoms on the train ride to Hogwarts, but tragedy brings them to their knees. And nothing will ever be the same.
1. Chapter 1: Forever

**A/N:** This story started life as a Harry/Luna one-shot in summer of 2007. Then called _The Scream_, what you see here is a considerably more developed and revamped version of that story. Anyway, this is called _Loveless_ and it's for no one.

**Loveless**

**Chapter One  
Forever**

Harry Potter stood silently, staring, before the invisible barrier between the Muggle and Magical King's Cross, dressed in ill-fitting trousers, worn trainers, and a dark-coloured jumper several sizes too large. Today would be his first day back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry since he had left it behind at the end of his ruinous fifth year. His face, in the months between, had sharpened and his demeanor had cooled.

He stood at the threshold of the magical world for one more brief moment and then, with a deep breath, he walked calmly through the portal to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

The first thing he became aware of when he walked through the portal was the great number of red-robed wizards, Aurors from the Ministry of Magic.

The second thing he noticed was quite as unpleasant: As soon as he stepped foot onto the platform, one by one, people stopped what they were doing to stare at him. As a test of his willpower, Harry had not once looked at _The Daily Prophet_ since he left school the term before. Had he done so, the enormous number of lookers-on might have made more sense to him.

The third thing he noticed was by far the most pleasant and welcome. Ginny Weasley, a Gryffindor fifth year and the younger sister of Harry's best friend Ron, was standing just a few feet before him, and though her gaze had not yet hit him, the sight of Ginny Weasley cheered Harry up anyway. She was a friend among the faceless and nameless.

When her eyes spied him, she smiled and walked quickly forward, throwing her arms around him. "Harry!"

Harry, his face in her hair and his arms snaked around her, smiled at the greeting; though not what he had expected, such an embrace was hardly unwelcome. "Hi, Ginny," he said a bit lamely. "How was your summer?" he asked when they had detached.

"Quiet," Ginny said. "The twins live in Diagon Alley now, and the Ghoul's been really quiet; I think he misses them."

Harry wondered to himself if it wasn't _just_ the ghoul who missed the Weasley twins.

"How were the Dursleys?" she asked.

"Quiet," he responded. "They'd left me to myself most of the summer, and they didn't fuss much when I wanted to be driven here." Noticing at last that Ginny was unaccompanied by Ron and Hermione, and for that matter the other members of the Weasley family, Harry asked the elephantine question. "Where are the others?"

Ginny blushed slightly. "Dumbledore called a meeting of the new prefects yesterday," she mumbled, bashfully pulling her pin out of her pocket.

Harry smiled in quiet congratulations.

"The meeting was in London, so most of us just stayed in the city rather than go back home to be here again the next day. Ron and the others should be here soon."

Satisfied by this explanation, Harry had just opened his mouth to ask Ginny if she knew when Ron and Hermione would be arriving when he closed it abruptly, preventing anything resembling a syllable from escaping his lips. It would not have been the most polite of questions, and at Ginny's curious look he asked a different question entirely: "D'you, er – d'you want to get on the train?" Before she could answer, however, he, flustered and reddening, answered the question himself, "Oh, erm, well I suppose you'll be waiting for Dean. So, erm... well, nevermind."

"Dean _Thomas_?" she asked, curious. "Why would I wait for Dean Thomas?"

"You — er — you're seeing him, aren't you? On the train, you said... back, last term..."

She tilted her head back and her freckled face split with laughter. "That was for Ron's sake, Harry. I barely even _know_ Dean Thomas."

Secretly, floodgates gave way and relief washed over him. Mirroring Ginny's amused smiled, Harry basked in the curious sensation, but refused to allow his mind to explain why, exactly, he was so pleased to hear Ginny wasn't seeing his roommate. Harry didn't dislike Dean; he was, after all, a decent bloke, and even a member of the previous year's DA.

"Right," he managed, sputtering, blushing.

With nothing left to say, Ginny and Harry boarded the train, three minutes before its destined time of departure.

When the two managed to find a suitably evacuated compartment, only a minute or so after the train began to pull out from the station, they settled in quietly, stowing away trunks and preparing themselves for seven hours' sitting.

One thing became very apparent very quickly for the two of them; despite all they time they had spent together over the course of the last five years, they had spent almost no time alone with one another; consequently, neither knew how to communicate with the other. And so, as often happens in situations such as these, Harry asked the first question that fell into his head:

"Is Luna one too?"

Ginny stared at him, mirth burning in her eyes. "What?"

Harry blushed. "A Prefect, I meant. Did she make Prefect?"

Ginny smiled at him. "Yes, she did."

The train compartment was silent for a few moments; Ginny looked out the window at the quickly passing scenery. Harry tried to look at the scene outside, but every few seconds, he would find himself glancing at Ginny, watching her watch the fleeing fields and hills through which the Hogwarts Express traveled. Harry felt very stupid staring, gawking at a girl he had known for four years without ever _knowing_. He regretted it now. If he had taken the time and bother to get to know her those years ago, the scene within the compartment might have been more interesting than the scene without.

"You never wrote," Ginny said eventually, breaking the silence. She was still staring out the window, but staring now without seeing. "We were all worried. The Order, Ron, mum, Hermione, me." She blinked. "All that we knew was that you were alive."

"I just needed time." He looked down at his hands. "I just needed time to get my head around things. Sirius dying..." he swallowed. "It took me time. I needed to be alone for... for a little while. If I hadn't had that... I'd be gone."

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I don't know. Maybe..."

"You're not even here... are you?"

"I don't... know anymore."

"You're not alone."

"I am. Between everything and the end, it's only me. I _am_ alone."

Sirius dying, the prophecy being revealed to him, and his realization that they were running perilously out of time before the war was on in-full, had ravaged his mind over summer, and he knew then and now that it was for the best that he kept to himself; if he hadn't, he would have self-destructed, pushed away everything near him. He knew it, and that foresight saved him when he finally emerged on the other side that morning.

The silence that followed his last words was long and heavy. She knew what he meant, every word of it. But it didn't make it easier. It could never be easy. But she also knew that there was a point when the reflection and introspection became indulgent and self-pitying, that once the potential for healing had zenithed, the only way to go was down, back down the nadir whence he'd come.

"There's a wolf at the door, and I'm trapped. I wake up every morning and... it's like — like the sky's falling in. I just don't know what to do anymore. I am alone."

Ginny touched her palm to Harry's white hand, pressurelessly reminding him of her presence. "You're not alone. I'm here. Can't you feel me? I'm here."

"For a little while," he breathed, "then I'll be gone."

"It wasn't your fault, Harry," Ginny assured him at his level; "there is nothing you could have done to save him."

Harry smiled a broken smile, his eyes closing and head falling back. "Not Sirius. I don't mean Sirius. I..."

"What else is there, Harry?" Ginny asked softly, whispering in his ear. "What else happened with Dumbledore, Harry?"

A shudder passed through Harry. His shoulders shook, his eyes fluttered and his hands trembled. "Please..." he begged her comfort, her understanding. He had never said it aloud.

"It's not _true_, Ginny." He swallowed. "I'm a lie. He knows it, and... that's it. I'll die."

He'd tried so hard, struggling against the wave of helplessness that brewed, but he could not hold out forever. The howling cry he gave made Ginny throw her arms around him, a hand on his back and a hand on his neck holding him as he wept, clutching to her. "I'm not here... This isn't happening." His voice tore his throat with the force of his pleas, "Please... _please..._"

This wasn't indulgence; it wasn't self-pity. It was disintegration, and the most Ginny could do was hold him as he fell apart, giving him some sort tie to reality, any sort of warmth to touch him, to deliver him from the abyss.

She whispered things in his ear, things he'd never hear, but it was the act of being held and rocked, precious words proffered, that allowed him to be slowly extracted from his breakdown. Ginny held him, and she didn't let go. Not when he stopped pleading with unseen divinities, nor when he stopped shaking, nor when his breathing slowed and his body grew limp. In that moment she resolved to never let him go...

_He stands on the edge of a silent forest, gazing into it and fighting against the feeling of fire in his hands; he clenches a fist at his side and missteps beyond the threshold and into the dark forest. One misstep at a time, left then right, he stares skyward to the tallest trees' tops._

_He walks for years between gnarled trees, an eternal moon hanging in the sky, full and falsely luminous. He hears the brush of branch on branch as the treetops sway in the air, the softest sound of slightest warning._

_The shrieks of ten thousand terrors pierces the night, the scream wordless but unchallenged, silencing the swaying trees. With the swiftness of a hungry wolf, he bounds through the trees, seeking the source of the scream in the wood's heart._

_He hears a quiet sound: A tree's whisper in the wind, a whisper of his name. He moves more swiftly, he begins to run through the labyrinth. His name is breathed again, more distinct now, the sound the sound of a plea in the dark. His run becomes a sprint as he leaps over the roots and the fallen angels before him. _

"_Harry." This time he is sure he has heard it. Another is in the forest; the timbre of the echo, the lilt of the breath urges him on. The voice echoes across the ground, from tree to tree, and he follows the voice in his ear to the heart of the forest, ever further into the trees._

_A streak of vibrant red flies before him, and he chases after its bearer, desperate for her. Swimming through the realized memory of forgotten dreams, he finds his specter failing. Clutching the ground, she who was mist corporealized is his red-topped love. "Help me."_

_He falls to his knees, breathless, and holds her to his chest, clutching her to himself as she to the ground, desperate for any sort of contact that could grant her salvation. "Hold on," he whispers into her cold ears, begging her. "Hold on," and rises with her._

_Shaking and her colour receding, with every moment she grows more ghostly than before. Her lips begin to grow blue, her eyes begin to glaze, and he turns and sprints whence he has come, the idea of convalescence captivating him. But safety is too far, his breath is not enough. Desperation taking hold, he stops to plant a hopeless kiss, tears falling from his eyes and upon her cheek. _

_Her lips and cheeks regain lost rubescence, her eyes clear, her breaths deepen, her life returns. A smile claims his face, he kisses her more deeply still, a euphoric kiss to light the blackest night. _

_Fearless, doubtless and in love, they rejoice and delight in one another, but the skies above grow restless and a shock of white light bisects the night. A ripping sound invades their embrace, and a strike of black, silver-streaked lightning tears through the resurrected one._

_He scrambles to her whence he had been thrown, clinging to her body and smothering her with kisses, tears cascading. "_I need you." _His voice cracks._ "I need you. Please. Please! Don't leave."_ Her fall continues, her life fading, essence ebbing. He holds her, begging her, "_Breathe_!" His voice fails. "Keep breathing..."_

_She smiles a fading smile breathlessly, tears falling,_

"_And I will see you in the next life."_

Harry awoke with a start, sweating and frantic. He scrambled about the room, his vision blurred and eyes unseeing, desperately searching. It couldn't be true, any of it; she had to be all right. But she wasn't there. She wasn't in their compartment. She was nowhere to be seen. She was gone because she was dead. In that horrible instant, Harry knew the events of his dream to be true.

He let himself fall to his knees, still. There was nothing in him.

Then the compartment door slid open, and standing there was Ginny. Harry looked upon her as if she were just back from the grave. Harry's confusion quickly gave to euphoria as he leapt to his feet, still entrenched in his post-nightmare shock, brought his arms around her, and kissed her. He kissed her a life-affirming kiss, a desperate expression of relief and joy and genuine feeling. It was nothing like with Cho.

At first, Ginny did not seem to know how to respond. She just stood there, frozen. But then her arms snaked around Harry and she responded to his kiss, matching passion with passion, the sort that lies dormant in the heart of the broken for years too long, the sort that fuels the fire of every unrequited lover.

Not a long while later, they broke apart slowly, panting slightly, their breathe colliding with one another's flushed cheeks as their eyes slowly opened to look upon the object of their respective passions.

"Hi," Harry breathed, to which Ginny responded in kind. "I, er," said Harry, starting again, before shaking his head slightly, giving up on words and placing his lips to hers once more, something eternal starting.

_Who needs words?_

Time passed. They didn't know how much. They didn't count the seconds. No one ever does, in the throes of it. At some timeless point, they broke apart for more than a few seconds, for reasons beyond respiratory necessity, and for a long time, just stared. Harry held her in his eyes as if he'd never seen her before. Her cheeks were redder, her lips puffier, her hair mussed; she should have appeared nearly the same to his eyes. But she didn't, and she would never look again how she had before. He loved her for it.

"Hi," Ginny whispered.

"Hi." He leant over a few inches and pressed his lips lightly to hers, not a hungry kiss as before, but the kiss that comes with comfort and real affection. When they broke apart, she softly pulled his hand into hers. There was a lot to say.

"I'm sorry," he said, leaning against the compartment wall and Ginny half-lying against his chest.

Ginny looked up at him in surprise. "Sorry? For what?"

"I spent five years not knowing you when I should have—"

"If you blame yourself for the Chamber, I'm walking out," Ginny said, and Harry wasn't sure if she was serious. In response he shut up and clasped his arms around her. "It wasn't your fault," she continued, "and I won't let you think it was. If it was anyone's fault—"

"If you say it was your fault, _I'm_ walking out," Harry said, cutting her off. He pecked a kiss into her rather mussed hair. "If it wasn't my fault, it wasn't yours either." He paused. "He was after me—"

"_Through _me," added Ginny.

"You can't hold yourself accountable for what Voldemort—" he noticed that she twitched slightly in his arms as he said the name, "for what _Voldemort_ has done."

"Wise words, Potter;" Ginny almost mumbled; then, her voice clearing up, she went on, "you might listen to yourself every once in awhile."

He smiled into her hair for a moment, then his mouth went slack again. "If we're not blaming ourselves for the Chamber, you have to at least let me take credit for not noticing how much fun _this_," he hugged her to him slightly, "is."

He knew she rolled her eyes. "Well, yes, all right, you can blame yourself for that." She sounded very smug.

"We have to talk about this, Ginny," said Harry, sounding very serious.

She shifted her body, sitting on her knees, looking him in the eyes now; this was a conversation to be had face-to-face. "I'm not leaving. There's nothing you can do to make me go. Not now, not ever."

She kissed him. She kissed him with every bit of emotion she could put into a kiss. She kissed him with greater passion than their earlier frantic fumblings could have allowed. She kissed him with purpose. She kissed him to instill permanence in his heart. She kissed him to tell him what she could not say.

"Thank you," he said quietly, distantly, ashamed. "Because I don't think I could...

"I can't do this alone."

"You won't," she said, kissing him, but softly spoke, "You won't be alone.

"You'll never be alone again."

He nodded quickly, his mouth tight and eyes gazing downward. "Okay." His voice was low. "Okay."

"What if we..." Ginny started, repositioning herself back onto Harry's chest, looking at the compartment ceiling to see her dreams. "What if we just ran for it, Harry? What if we just ran and left the world behind? Hogwarts, _Him_, everything."

Escape wasn't something Harry had ever really considered, beyond that desperate day after his second year. What if they did just make a run for it and disappeared? He had money. They could make it, at least for awhile. There were places they could hide. Hagrid's cave, that rock on the sea where he'd first found out about Hogwarts, even the Forbidden Forest. They could leave the country. They could disappear completely. No Voldemort, no worries. Just Ginny and him, all day, every day, for the rest of their lives.

"Let's do it," he said, inspiration blinding him. "Let's just disappear. We could go anywhere."

Ginny responded to his enthusiasm in kind, matching and then exceeding him. "We can escape. Tonight."

"We'd have to get the Firebolt. You haven't got a broom, but the Firebolt could probably hold us both, if we were careful."

"But we'll have to wait until we get to Gryffindor Tower. The Firebolt's in your trunk, isn't it?"

"Yeah. We'll have to wait until the trunk shows up in my dormitory. I don't know _where_ it's at until then."

Harry smiled at the back of Ginny's head. "What sort of note do you leave? '_Dear Ron, I've run off with your sister, don't write us, we'll write you_'?" Harry and Ginny roared with laughter at the absurdity of the note. "Ron would explode!" Harry laughed. "He'll think I'm off having my wanton way with you!"

"That'll be Percy's take, anyway," said Ginny, giggling into her hands.

"I don't want to wait, Ginny," Harry said seriously, but still with a smile. "I want to run. We'll go somewhere they'll never find us." His wanderlust now outstripped any desire he'd ever had to escape the Dursleys. He wanted to run away, to disappear completely and never be found. "How do you fancy France?"

She turned over and pressed her lips to Harry's, and Harry smiled into her face before kissing back, feeling genuinely happy. Today had been the first time he had been able to say that for what felt like years. He kissed Ginny, holding her to him, and resolved that he would not let what had happened to Sirius, to Cedric, to his parents, happen to her. They'd run away together; they'd run for their lives.


	2. Chapter 2: The Wolf at the Door

**Loveless**

**Chapter Two  
The Wolf at the Door**

An hour later, as darkness had fully fallen and their arrival at Hogwarts grew near, the compartment door slid open, and a pale, sniveling face appeared. He seemed shocked for a moment, and he opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing.

"The _Weaslette_, Potter?" he asked incredulously a moment later.

"Shut it, Malfoy," Harry responded, Ginny scooting over and Harry standing. "And get out."

"Going to make me, are you, Potter?" Malfoy scoffed, "Your mates aren't here; no Mudblood to tell you what to do, no Weasel to back you."

Harry withdrew his wand. He'd looked over the curses in his sixth year Defense texts a few times over the summer. He knew some good ones now. "Where are _your_ mates, Draco? Off with your dad?"

Malfoy smiled a slight smile, "Yeah, actually. They're busy tonight. Say, Potter, where _are_ your mates?" he asked with a wink.

Harry felt the blood fall from his face and Ginny rise beside him. "Get out, Malfoy."

Malfoy pulled out his own wand, holding it on Harry. He smiled at the black-haired boy, and then cast his gaze toward Ginny, sizing her up. "How much do you want for her, Potter? Twenty? Thirty Galleo—?"

"_Confringo!_" Harry shouted.

The curse rushed at Malfoy and collided into him before he could summon a defense; he was blown against the wall through the open compartment door, smashing into it and sliding down to the ground, motionless. Harry crossed swiftly to the door, slid it shut, turned the latch to lock it, and muttered "_Colloportus_."

"He'll be fine," Harry said to Ginny's somewhat worried look. "That was just a blasting curse. He'll have a headache for awhile. But nothing permanent." Harry wasn't quite as convinced as he sounded; the blasting curse, though not lethal, was certainly harsher than a simple banishing charm would have been. _The great git deserved it_, he reminded himself. And he had.

"I think something's happened, Harry," Ginny said a moment later. "The way he said... What if Ron and Hermione didn't just miss the train?" Their mutual assumption had been that their absence was the fault of tardiness, but Malfoy's suggestion had frightened her. It was the old fear; that gnawing, back-of-the-mind sort of fear that she carried with her everywhere, but which she never considered as more than an abstraction. She felt herself before a terror greater than fear. _What if they...?_

"I'm sure they're fine," Harry soothed as well as he could, an amateur at it still. "We're going to get to Hogwarts and find Ron and Hermione snogging in a broom cupboard," he joked. "I'm sure they'll be there, Ginny; Voldemort wouldn't just attack them out of the blue. Not now, when everyone knows he's back." Even to him, his logic seemed flawed; they sounded like the words he could have said a year earlier, when _no one_ believed he was back. Could Voldemort work in the open now? Now that he had been recognized by the world at large? Harry was ill at ease. "The Order will have seen to their protection."

"Yeah," Ginny said, dejected. "You're probably right." She didn't believe him any more than he did. But a thing spoken is irrevocable, and so she was silent. "I wish we had a way of knowing."

"Yeah. I had thought Dumbledore might've put minders on us too. For protection. We could've gotten information from them." Harry smiled. "But if they could keep silent through what we've been doing..." Harry laughed, "Well, they'd be too good for the Order, anyway."

Ginny smiled, looking up at him. "They could've set off _fireworks_ and I'd not have noticed."

Harry grinned at her and started rubbing her hand with his. "It's a nice feeling." He pressed his lips to the left side of her neck, kissing her from behind. He wanted to recapture their peripheral ignorance. He wanted for them to escape into one another; he wanted her to forget her fears and he his.

He felt Ginny shiver against his kiss and lean back into him softly, and he curled an arm around her waist in response, his hand resting on her stomach.

Harry would have been quite content to sink into the feeling of that moment for an eternity, that blissful ignorance of the passing time and falling sun, but as Hogsmeade grew near, they both feared that to every dream there was an end.

When the train rolled in to Hogsmeade, the first and most unusual thing that Harry and Ginny noticed was the number of red-robed Aurors on the platform. The next thing they noticed, which alarmed them more even than the Aurors, was that Dumbledore stood at the head of them, his wand in his hand, waiting for the train's grinding halt.

"Something's happened," Ginny said, white.

"Or is about to," Harry supplemented.

"Wands out, you reckon?" Harry asked, then shuddered, remembering. And he then very suddenly felt very cold.

He saw Ginny nod, pulling out her wand, and he followed suit, suspecting that the rest of the train probably had the same idea. He looked out the compartment window very nervously, his eyes scanning the crowd of Aurors, half expecting to see Lucius Malfoy's cold eyes staring back at him, a wolf amongst the sheep. But he could not make out the faces well enough to recognize any of them. They could be faced with a crowd of wolves.

Tense, Harry and Ginny put their wands away, clasped hands more tightly than they otherwise might have, and exited their compartment to join the long queue to the exit. A few glances were swept at them by their fellows. Some older students looked in curiosity at their clasped hands, some approving; some students, first years, nudged their friends with their elbows, getting a good glance at the famous Harry Potter for the first time; others looked at Harry like they were awestruck: Harry didn't know it, but the _Prophet's_ hailing him as Savior was now a widespread belief. The first years had spent the last two months hearing about how Harry Potter would save them all. Others, however, were by far more interested in the congregated Aurors and teachers, valuing their safety more than Harry Potter's love life.

"If Michael Corner doesn't put his eyes back in his head," Ginny said in a low voice after a few minutes of being in queue, "I'll keep them."

Harry grinned for a moment, then threw a dirty look Corner's way. He seemed to get the idea. His face reddened somewhat and he then turned away quickly.

Ginny made a disapproving sound and Harry laughed. "Sorry – he keeps his eyes."

As the line grew shorter and Harry and Ginny grew nearer to the one exit, Harry could not help but notice how tense everyone seemed. Despite joking with Ginny, he believed the words of their earlier exchange: Either something had happened or was about to. Had it been only an increased Auror presence at Hogsmeade Station, Harry would not have felt so nervous, but the only thing that would get Dumbledore down to Hogsmeade was an imminent threat. He was unable to see out of the train now, and he reckoned he would rather be able to; the inclusion of a variable at this moment could prove disastrous.

After a few moments, Harry and Ginny, their fingers still laced, had reached what was very nearly the front of the queue; for the first time in several minutes, they could see out of the train. What they saw did nothing to reassure their nerves. The Aurors who had been standing together on the platform earlier were now spread out, wands raised, their eyes trained on spots in the sky, waiting. Standing before them all was Dumbledore, his wand held in his hand and eyes scanning left and right, up and down with some speed. He did not seem nervous, but cautious, rather, and in a way Harry and Ginny had not seen since that day the year before.

They would have held fast forever to his stance of guarded readiness if it would have meant he did not look upon them the way he did when he caught sight of them. A smile unlike any either teenager could recall upon his face, Dumbledore looked at them with something like tragedy behind his spectacles. He moved forward when Harry and Ginny had reached the front of the exit queue and withdrew a timepiece from his robes.

"Hello, Mr. Potter, Ms. Weasley," he greeted without a smile. "I shall have to ask you both wait for me in my office; when I have secured the safety of my students, I shall join you."

"Sir, what's happened? Where are—"

"Please, Ms. Weasley, I shall explain everything in its right place."

Perhaps it was his brevity as much as anything that alarmed them. It was routine for the Headmaster to allow for a response to all he said, from his greeting to his dismissal, and that he denied them these courtesies spoke of an urgency as deep as they'd feared.

Wordlessly, the Headmaster offered the timepiece to Harry and Ginny and, with a tap of his wand, sent them away to Hogwarts' innermost sanctum.

When Harry and Ginny arrived in Dumbledore's office, voices that had been speaking silenced themselves; the portraits on the walls of Headmasters and Mistresses past had several ways of evading questions and suspicion. Some of them, Phineas Nigellus leading the charge, feigned sleep, while others averted their eyes or made loud, ordinary conversation with their neighbors, all in the name of ignorance.

It was not unusual, Harry knew, for the portraits to act like this; it seemed that every time Harry was in this office, the portraits were acting this way. To Ginny he said so.

"Not always," she replied. "I had... well... I had _tea _with Dumbledore once. They were lovely then."

Harry grinned slightly, honestly at the idea of what to Harry's imagination was a twelve year old Ginny and much-senesced Dumbledore enjoying a spot of tea. Wistfully, however, he reflected that he had never met with Dumbledore under such circumstances.

"I suppose I only ever come here when something horrible's happened." Looking about and seeing nothing to suggest that Dumbledore's office had been half-destroyed just a few months earlier, Harry remarked, "Dumbledore cleans up pretty well; you'd never know this place was in ruins last June."

"Ruins?" asked Ginny, alarmed.

Harry grinned in all honesty now. "I might've smashed a few things, last time I was here."

"_Why_?"

Now the smile faded from Harry's face, replaced with a look of relative passivity. "It was after the Department of Mysteries. We talked about Sirius... And then he told me about—"

"Yeah," Ginny said softly, stopping him.

"I think I'll have to apologise," Harry said after a moment's silence. He sniffed and looked about. "It wasn't his fault."

Ginny nodded, slipping her hand into his. A small smile flashed across Harry's face for a moment, but neither his heart nor mind were in it. "I suppose I haven't got a great track record, being in this office." Looking up for a few moments at the snoozing Headmasters, he predicted a continuation. "I don't think tonight will change anything."

"I wish he had explained himself. I want to know why we're here." The same question that had plagued their minds earlier, aboard the train, had not been answered; had something happened, or was something still yet to? It was better to know something horrible than to wait, allowing time for their imaginations to dream up something more horrible still.

"Phineas!" Harry called out, his voice raised and directed at Sirius' ancestor. The portrait, however, did not rouse itself from its fake slumber, preferring to avoid any sort of confrontation in favor of continuing to eavesdrop.

"Phineas!" Harry called out again, louder this time. Still the portrait slept.

"Phineas, stop pretending or I'll charm you pink!"

With a loud yawn and a dramatic shudder, Phineas Nigellus allowed himself to depart from his feigned dormancy. He opened his eyes, took one glance at Harry and Ginny, and at once turned up his nose. "Oh," he snarked, "it's _you_."

"Yeah," Harry snarked back, rolling his eyes and squeezing Ginny's hand slightly, "_us_. Why are we here?"

Phineas Nigellus scowled. "You are here at the pleasure of the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." He gave something of a humph. "You are worth no further explanation."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Will any of you," addressing all portraits, "tell us what's happened, _if_ something's happened, if something is about to?"

Phineas must have gotten upset at no longer being the centre of attention, so it was he who spoke. "Dumbledore has asked us to make no mention of why you are here; he wishes to explain things himself. A request of the Headmaster of Hogwarts always will be honoured by us." Phineas Nigellus glared about the room, enforcing his last. Harry could not help but notice, however, that a number of the looks cast by the portraits at the pair were sympathetic. And aimed at Ginny.

"They won't tell us anything, Harry," Ginny whispered to him.

"I know," he whispered back. "But it was worth a try." He sighed and pulled himself and Ginny onto a double-seated armchair. "If anything happens here, we'll know about it. Hogwarts has a lot of security charms; I reckon at least one of them is an alarm."

And so they sat in silence together, keeping close and counting time as one. They were both nervous, fearful that something horrible had happened. Neither had seen Ron or Hermione on the train, and it was to them that their thoughts immediately went. If something had happened, and the last thing Harry had ever said to them, in a letter no less, was that he was fine, and would they please stop worrying about him... He didn't think he could bear the idea of his last words to them being an annoyed dismissal.

"It can't be them," Ginny whispered to him. "It can't be."

But then, why were they not too sent to the safety of Dumbledore's office? What if it was Neville? Or Luna?

For the first time in his life, Harry Potter wished that something horrible was going to happen.

The door to Dumbledore's office creaked open, the man himself standing in the threshold, looking wearier than Harry had ever seen him, wearier even than he had that night some months earlier. He was not impressive, standing before the door frame; he lacked his usual posture, the customary smile upon his face and in his eyes. It was as they looked upon him, old and unimpressive, that they noticed his charred, blackened right hand.

"Professor!" Harry almost shouted, jumping to his feet, believing the Headmaster's hand the result of some lost battle. "Your hand, sir — what's happened? Is anyone else hurt?"

Stepping into the office proper, Dumbledore reflected that, under different circumstances, he might have laughed. "The school is not under attack, Harry, I assure you; this," he indicated his right hand with his left, "is an older wound."

Dumbledore sighed as he proceeded to cross the room, making his way to the high-backed chair behind his desk. Harry and Ginny sat in silence, relieved by the news that Hogwarts was safe, if disturbed by Dumbledore's deformity, and waited for him to proceed.

When Dumbledore had settled himself into his chair, the ancient Headmaster seemed to tire considerably; as he opened his mouth to explain what he had to, his every muscle seemed to fail. "This morning," he began, "there was an attack." His eyes cast themselves at the surface of his desk, unable or unwilling to look either adolescent in the eyes. "Lord Voldemort believed that you, Harry," Dumbledore still would not meet his eyes, "would be traveling to King's Cross with the Weasley family."

"_No_." The blood fell from his face, gaping. "_No!_"

The solemnity of Dumbledore's nod was horrible. "We think Lord Voldemort and as many as a dozen of his Death Eaters were present. There was nothing they could have done."

Ginny, whose hand Harry was holding, was perfectly still. Harry looked at her, his own vision beginning to fail from tears. She was white as death. Her breath was still as the tears began to fall. Harry pulled her face to his chest as her breath began again, her body shaking and wracked with violent, lurching cries.

Holding Ginny's face to his chest, Harry voiced what they both were hoping so hopelessly in a tremulous tone. "Were there... Did anyone...?"

His face fallen, Dumbledore finally looked into Harry's eyes, tear-stained face for tear-stained face. "Not as such."

Harry made a sound, a communication that begged Dumbledore's clarification, but he could not say it. His throat was too constricted for words. "De... Dementors?"

"No. There is one survivor... for the moment." Guessing that Harry would next want to know who, "Ron Weasley is still alive, but... The Healers do not expect him to see tomorrow." Dumbledore sniffed uncharacteristically. "He is at St Mungo's, as are the bodies, should you wish to... to say good-bye."

Ginny nodded into his chest, Harry stroking her hair. "Yeah." They couldn't all be... "Who... how many?"

Dumbledore looked at Harry uneasily. "Twelve. Molly, Arthur, Bill, Charlie, Fred, George, Percy, and Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Fleur Delacour, Mad-Eye Moody, and Kingsley Shacklebolt."

Whatever blood was left in him fell away. Hermione? The Weasleys? All of them dead. Because Voldemort had thought Harry would be with them. And of course he had thought that. Harry had always gone to King's Cross with them. He would know Harry's usual modus movendi. They had died, all of them, for their mere association to him. Execution by affiliation. They had died because they were friends to him. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, who had treated him like a son. Ron and Hermione, his first and closest friends. Mad-Eye Moody, the grizzly Auror who had captured so many Dark Wizards, who had been a kind of second leader to the Order. Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had helped Harry escape being arrested the last year. Bill, who had been dating Fleur Delacour, who had always been Ginny's favorite brother. Charlie, who had saved Norbert all those years ago. Fred and George, whose passion in life had been laughter. And Percy! Percy, who had only weeks before reconciled with his family, who had only weeks earlier made Mrs. Weasley weep with joy at having her whole brood in one piece again. And now there was no one left but Ron, lying in a bed in St Mungo's, to die before the morning, and Ginny, whose entire family had just been wiped out. She was an orphan. She was alone. _Oh Ginny_...

He wasn't sure when the tears began to fall. He couldn't feel them. But now he was a mess. They were all gone. The Weasleys who had loved him as one of their own. Hermione, whom he'd loved like a sister. Fleur, Kingsley, Moody – all dead. Ginny was alone, and so was he. She was all he had, he all she had.

His face was on fire. All he could do was cling to Ginny. She needed him. And he needed her. He needed to feel that he wasn't alone. And she needed to feel it too. Everything was disintegrating. The room fell away. All that was left was her. She was like him now. An orphan. Completely alone. She was now everything he had never wanted for her to have to be. She was him. No home. No family. He could bear to be alone, at least he thought he could. He had had sixteen years of lovelessness to prepare him. She had always been loved. She had _never_ been alone. And now she was. And from that moment, from then and for ever, one had nothing and no one but the other.


	3. Chapter 3: The Streets Will Run Red

**A/N:**_ After nearly seven months of attempting this chapter, it's finally done. I started writing this chapter on the 19__th__ of January and finished it on the 2__nd__ of August. It's taken a very long time, and I hope you don't see why.  
_

**Loveless**

**Chapter Three  
The Streets Will Run Red**

St. Mungo's seemed more menacing this time than it had the year previous. The walls had eyes and they stared. The guilt of surviving haunted him. He sat in a small waiting room outside the ward handling eminent deaths, hunched over in his seat, elbows on his knees, hands in his hair, breathing despair.

He and Ginny had arrived two hours ago. On Harry's request, Dumbledore had agreed to take them to the hospital himself; he had seen to it that Ron's ward of the hospital was shut off to visitors and the press. Rita Skeeter, it transpired, was already writing an 'investigative report' for the _Prophet_ on the attack.

When they had arrived, he and Ginny had asked to see Ron; only she was granted permission. Ron, didn't want to see him. The witch at the reception desk had used the word "_yet_," but Harry, his mind racing and heart pounding, suspected that was her word. Ron did not want to see him. He knew this was Harry's fault.

Harry was glad to be rid of Dumbledore, whom he had asked to leave him be for awhile. Harry knew the term for what he was feeling, what Dumbledore would tell him he was feeling, what Hermione would have, _could_ she have. Survivor's guilt, it was called. A Freudian lie. He could imagine Dumbledore explaining in his gentle, omniscient manner that what he was feeling would pass, that what he was feeling was normal, that what had occurred would have occurred with or without him.

But Harry knew a liar when he saw him, and Dumbledore was one, the type who would lie to keep another happy, the type who would lie for peace of mind and for any other lie a lie could justify. He would lie, and Harry would appreciate the courtesy of it; but a lie was a lie, and Harry would know it if said to his face.

Had he not kept to his precious self, had he not _insisted_ on solitude, would this have happened? Everywhere he went for more than a year, he had had a minder. What if his minder could have turned the tide? What if _he_ himself could have set back Voldemort's offensive? The final showdown needn't have been then, but stiffer resistance might have rebuffed Voldemort's attack. And it ate him alive.

He hated himself for his selfishness. Despite offers from the Weasleys, made only out of love and concern, Harry had insisted on remaining at the Dursleys'; he wanted to be alone, to brood, to suffer in silence like the tragic figure the _Prophet_ had decried him one year earlier! The Weasleys had just wanted to see him, to have him happy, to share, and so lessen, his grief over the death of his godfather. And to what did their kindness bring them? The grave.

Even now, sitting in a waiting room in Britain's largest magical hospital, awaiting news of his oldest friends imminent demise, _even now_ he thought only of himself and his failures. Ron lay dying, and Harry thought about himself, pitied himself, brooded, just as he had the whole summer.

Ginny had lost her mother, father, brothers, friends. She was an orphan now. She had no one. He had fooled himself earlier with his thoughts of romantic suffering, that she was not alone, that she still had him. They had been together less than half a day. His feelings were a loveless misappropriation. She could have been anyone. He would have any who would have him.

He couldn't sit there in that mourning room anymore. He couldn't stand to sit any longer, waiting for the opening of the doors, for the chance to come to Ron's bedside and beg forgiveness. He just couldn't. So with burning legs and blurring vision, he stood, turned, and walked out of the waiting room.

He had no destination, walked in no planned direction. But he had to move. He had to escape his head before it did him in. His brain burned. He wasn't rightly breathing. And he wished he couldn't breathe; he wished he was lying on a cold metal slab in the St. Mungo's morgue, like his adoptive family. They had died for him. But if he were dead, if he were to die _now_, no one else would have to go in his stead. He could be the last to die. And in death, he could spare all others the Weasleys' fate.

And then he knew where he was going. Down and down, he used the stairs. He wanted the basement. He needed to see them in the morgue, needed to see their cold and lifeless bodies, needed to beg their forgiveness, their absolution. And he hoped he wouldn't get it. Some savage, masochistic greed sought the catharsis of their rejection. He sought it as fully as he sought their forgiveness.

He descended further and further; St. Mungo's was a tall building, and it took time, but the burning in his legs matched the burning in his chest and in his mind, and he thought he felt it cleanse him, if only marginally. He picked up his pace, moving more quickly now down the stairs, desperate to see the family who had died for him. The family he had killed.

After an eternity, he reached it. At the bottom of the stairs there was an arch. Next to it was a black placard, reading simply, _Death Ward_. With a slow and deep breath, Harry stepped through the arch.

The Death Ward was colder than the rest of the hospital. _Probably to preserve the bodies_, Harry thought darkly. The ward was lit by torches, and Harry might have thought it a cavern if he hadn't known better. The atmosphere was mournful; like the waiting room, but without an air of expectation. The air was heavy. And he didn't know what it smelt like, but he suspected it was the smell of death.

Whoever was the usual attendant of the Death Ward was absent; but for the corpses and Harry, the ward was abandoned. As he walked deeper into the ward, past the reception desk, he saw them: Bodies lay on metal slabs in a long hall, eyes closed and dressed in St. Mungo's gowns.

Looking down the row of bodies, he found, after moments of gazing, the ones he was looking for. He moved slowly toward them; despite his rush to arrive and torment himself with their corpses, now that he was here, he was not sure he could bear to see them.

They looked so pale. Their red hair and brown freckles were so stark upon them. Each body was pale and lifeless and, but for one, serene. They might have been sleeping. But a twin's corpse betrayed the truth: They had been slaughtered. Not knowing which twin had been so brutalized hurt Harry like he never thought it could. They all had died, and for him, but…. The one who had been most mangled, the one who had been most butchered, was unknown to him. Harry didn't know the name of the one who had given his most for Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

There was a stool next to Molly Weasley's body, and Harry sat on it. He closed his eyes and his lips contorted, holding back a howl. He reached out a trembling hand and held hers in his. Mrs. Weasley, his surrogate mother, the loud and overbearing matriarch, loved and feared by her brood and all who knew her; Molly Weasley who had taken Harry in when she hardly knew him, all those years ago; the woman who had allowed her son's dangerous friend to stay with them for the summer, knowing even then what a target he was, knowing even then how dangerous knowing him was. And she willfully and lovingly associated herself and her family with him. She took him in, and was his mother in all but blood. And she was dead. For nothing.

"I'm so sorry," he said, his voice collapsing and folding into itself. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Weasley." She was dead for him, and he'd done nothing for her. She was dead for him, because of him. Dead because he'd been too selfish to be around her and her family. She was dead because Harry was selfish. And all she'd ever done was love.

"I'm so sorry," he'd begun to break down. "Look what I've – looked what I've done to your family, look what I've…" he sucked in a breath. "I'm why you're gone – all of you. You're… dead. Because of me. I killed you." He blinked away. "I'm so _fucking_ sorry."

He looked across to her dead husband, Arthur's closed eyes and slack face. "I took your husband," he said, his head falling to Mrs. Weasley's arm. And he remembered Arthur Weasley the Muggle fanatic, remembered being asked about rubber ducks, about how airplanes stayed up, about plugs, about dishwashers and light bulbs and every wonderful, quirky thing that endeared him to Harry; the man's familial devotion, his status as surrogate father to Harry, his understated wisdom and his friendliness. All of that was gone now. And Harry felt nothing but guilt. The blame was his. He had robbed the world of Arthur Weasley.

"I took your boys." Bill Weasley, her eldest, the son with the dragon fang earring, with the long hair that Mrs. Weasley had longed to cut. Charlie, who had been back in the country from Romania for the first time in years to be with his family for the last few weeks of summer. Fred and George, who would never play another prank, who would never crack another joke, who would never wear another grin, who would never tease another, who would never breath again.

Percy… Percy who had _just_ reconciled with his family, who had rejoined the family after a year of siding against them, Percy who had made his mother's face tear-streaked for the last time, and that last time they were tears of joy, of feeling whole again. Feelings she would never feel again, now that Harry had taken everything from her. Ron, who would be dead in hours, dying of a curse no healer could heal, dying by no fault of his own, dying by Harry's own foolishness, by Harry's own selfishness.

And Hermione, her bushy hair now blood-caked, lay a few slabs from him. She was a sister, had been his closest friend in the world, next to the boy dying above him. Just hours earlier, he'd joked with Ginny that she and her brother were probably in a broom cupboard somewhere, sucking the other's face off. And now she'd never have that opportunity. She and Ron, whatever they had the beginnings of, whatever could have been, died with her.

She had written him over the summer, had tried to pull him out of his state, had tried to be there for him. And he had rebuffed her! He'd wanted to suffer alone, had wanted to be left to his head! Where would they be now if he hadn't? How many bodies would line the basement walls of St. Mungo's if not for his selfishness? One? None?

The last thing he ever said to her, he realized with a heart that broke like a dying star, was that he was fine and…. And he'd asked her if she would stop writing him. He'd asked her to leave him alone. And now she was dead. And he could never apologize. He could never explain. His last words to her were a kiss off.

Harry, the tears streaking down his face, ran his hands through his hair, warring for control of his breath, fighting for shudders and gasps. "I'm so sorry." He stood, his head bowed. He breathed out. "None of you should have died." Errant tears fell. "And no one else will die for me." He took a breath to breathe. "I'm sorry it took your deaths for me to realize that."

He turned and left without another word. Part of him was gone now, a part he would never have again. He couldn't just suffer their presence anymore. He couldn't stand before sightless eyes in lifeless bodies. He couldn't take their blind damnation. It was too much. Too painful. Too powerful.

At a funereal pace, Harry ascended the stairs, a plan forming in his head. They'd hit the bottom, and now was the time to escape. If there were a better reason to run and never look back, Harry didn't know it. He would come to Ron's death bed and beg forgiveness. One last time. From his dying friend, he would seek the absolution the dead below could not give.

Ascending faster now, beginning to feel the familiar sensation of desperation, of time ticking, he wondered if it was too late. Was Ron still alive? Had he… had he died? Had he died, Ginny standing over his body, with no one? He never should have left, and he knew it now. He started skipping steps, taking two at a time, rising higher and higher to be near.

Finally he reached the ward Ron was kept. He crashed through the doors that separated the waiting room from the stairwell, moving purposefully toward Ron's room. He had to see his oldest friend before he died. He had to be there.

He opened the door, more gently than the stairwell doors, and went into Ron's room. His was a private room – Dumbledore had seen to that – and no one was in it but he and his sister. The look in Ron's eyes when he saw Harry would stay burnt in his mind as long as he lived. Those blue eyes, once vibrant, were now pale and dimmed by pain and tears.

He was half-lying, half-sitting on his bed, the back raised. He struck Harry down with his eyes, undid him before his words got the chance. "Get out," he croaked. He _croaked_.

"Get out." He looked him in the eyes, piercing him with his gaze. "He… _He_ was so angry… when you weren't with us. He killed… he killed us because of _you_. _You_. It's… it's because of… you. He would have spared us. But _**you**_!" He roared, "_**YOU!**_" And then he was coughing and his breath was short and Harry could see blood and – and he was dying. Ron was dying.

"_Get out, Harry!_" Ginny shouted at him. And there was… there was rage in her eyes. None of the tenderness he'd known was left in her eyes, on her face. There was just rage and hate now. She hated him. She blamed him too.

"I'm…" the words fell out of his mouth, "sorry. I'm sorry. I'm…."

"_GO!_" she roared as a pair of healers rushed past him.

And tears fell, and he turned, and against the light he walked out, out of the room and out of the word, out of the hospital and into the cold London night, away from his oldest and dying friend, the cold and silent bodies of his dead friends and family, and the girl he could have loved.

**XXX-XX-XXXX**

Eventually, he was found. He didn't know how long ago he had left St. Mungo's; it might have been minutes, it might have been hours, it might have been days. But eventually, as Harry knew he must be, the runaway savior was found.

"It was foolish to run, Harry."

"Yes."

"It was dangerous: Lord Voldemort has many spies."

"Yes."

A pause.

"Did you wish to be found, Harry?"

"Not by you."

"But by Lord Voldemort?"

"Yes."

Another.

"He would have killed you."

"I know."

"That's what you want? To die?"

"Yes, it is."

"I'm afraid, Harry, of all the things you might asked me, that is it the one I most assuredly cannot give."

"I don't care. Not about the Prophecy, not about you, and not about me."

"No, I don't believe you do, Harry.

"But you should."

"Why?

"He's taken everything. Why should I care what happens now?"

"Because however much you would like it to be so, he has _not_ taken everything. Lord Voldemort could take more than he has; and he will, before this is over."

"I don't believe you."

"You have lost nearly everyone, but some remain. You cannot see it now, and I cannot fault you that; but there is more you could lose.

"The Weasleys died for you, Harry."

"I didn't want them to," he said, and his voice broke.

"I know you didn't, Harry, but it was their choice to, and they did."

"They didn't want to die. Molly Weasley didn't want her sons dead."

"No, she didn't. But she died for you, and her sons made the same choice. As did Ms. Granger, as did the others. They believed in a cause and believed that their lives were less important than yours; you can war within yourself whether they were right, but it is what they believed. To some, Harry, it is worth dying for a cause to succeed. Is there nothing, is there no one, you would die for, Harry?"

_Ginny._

"No. There is no one."

They came upon a bench and sat.

"I don't believe you, Harry," he said plainly. "Lord Voldemort has taken much from you today; but he has not taken it all. There is still Hagrid, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks – there is still Professor McGonagall, and there is still me. But it wouldn't be for us that you would die. Ms. Weasley has no one now, Harry, but you. And you know that."

A pause again.

"If it were possible, Harry, would you die now if it would save them?"

He was silent for half a minute. "Yes."

"Then see what has happened as an opportunity: You have been robbed of those you most love; a mother, a father, brothers, a sister, friends: Your family.

"You have nearly no one, and that makes you very dangerous. A man with no ties, with no one to lose, is capable of things, by his very nature, that a common man is not; it is precisely this which makes Severus Snape both so dangerous and so useful, precisely this which will make you what you must become.

"If you are prepared, Harry, if you are able to see what has happened and know that such evil must not be allowed to continue, if you are prepared to accept that such evil can be stopped, and that it is you who can stop it – if you are ready, Harry, I will teach you what you need to know to kill Lord Voldemort and those who would kill the ones you love.

"There is more to murder than knowledge of spells and dueling. If you are ready, Harry, if you have sunk low enough – and I believe you have – I shall teach you not only the means but the mindset to kill to save those who remain.

"Voldemort has gone beyond. He has struck at your heart. And violence understands only violence; if you are ready, Harry, I will teach you to retaliate. Voldemort has raised the stakes and set a new bar: You can allow him to win this, you can surrender before his death-stroke. Or you can rise above, and teach _him_ terror.

"War is lethal. And thus so I must make you. If you are prepared, I will make you what you need to be to end this war. And if you back down now, if you sink into yourself rather than embrace what you must do, if you give in to the sorrow and the pain Lord Voldemort has brought you, this war will never end. And the streets of Diagon Alley will run red with the blood of your friends. And in time, we shall all die the Weasleys' deaths.

"This war will never end but by you, Harry."

Harry Potter closed his eyes. And when he opened them again, he was not the boy of before. "Then teach me," he said, vengeance in his eyes and violence in his heart. "Teach me to kill them." His voice was a whisper, and his words were lethal. "All of them. And their blood will stain the streets instead."


End file.
